Labels are often placed on vehicles to instruct and warn operators, to promote or designate a particular brand or trademark, and/or to add decoration. Conventional plastic molding systems and methods can be used to manufacture a vehicular body panel (e.g., a fender) to include a labeling region. In some circumstances, the labeling region is formed during a molding process to include apertures. A label can then be attached to the labeling region such as through use of fasteners (e.g., rivets) inserted through the label and into the apertures. Adhesives may additionally or alternatively be employed for securement of a label to a labeling region of a vehicular body panel. In another conventional configuration, a label can be attached to a vehicular body panel during molding of the vehicular body panel through use of an in-mold labeling process.
It can, at times, be desirable for a manufacturer of vehicular body panels to alternate the manner in which labels are applied to manufactured vehicular body panels. For example, a manufacturer of fenders might typically employ an in-mold labeling process to apply labels to fenders. However, if a problem arises with the in-mold labeling equipment, until the equipment is repaired, the manufacturer might resort to use of fasteners for attaching labels to the fenders. In such circumstance, the molds of the plastic molding process must either be changed out to include aperture-forming molds, or apertures must be manually provided (e.g., drilled) in each manufactured fender to accommodate the fasteners for the labels. Accordingly, alternating between conventional label application techniques can require significant time and cost expenditure.